5 months!

Wow, I have a 5-month-old! If only my houseplants were this adorable and interactive, I'd have no problem keeping them alive...

Madelyn is 15 pounds, and 25 inches (by my rough measurement on the changing table). She still fits most of her 3-6 month clothes, but the 6 month clothes look more comfy on her and don't hug her belly as much.

I can't remember exactly when we extended her schedule to eating every 3.5 hours, I just know that I had to start waking her up to eat and figured it was time for her to go longer than 3 hours. I wanted to document what our day is like at this age, so I can come back to this entry and scrapbook it later :) This "agenda" flexes by about 30 minutes here and there. I don't want people thinking I'm hyperscheduling my baby! She just really needs a routine or else she's super crabby. Here's what her day has been looking like lately:

4:30am - Wake up and either talk loudly or cry out for assistance with something. This varies from pacifier location and replacement to relocating her body within the crib to allow for more room to roll. She usually goes back to sleep, but sometimes will be in and out of sleep between now and her normal wakeup time of...

6:30am - I love it when she actually sleeps until this time. It usually happens the day after she was at daycare, since she doesn't sleep well there during the day and makes up for it that night. We get up, potty, and nurse. At around 7am, she gets her face washed and changed out of her jammies.

8:00am - Nap. As long as she wasn't too awake between 4:30 and 6:30, she can usually stay up for 90 minutes before needing a morning nap. If she didn't have a good early morning, this nap can start at 7:30.

10:00am - Get up, potty, and nurse. Then playtime, either blanket time or in her jumper gym.

11:30am - potty and down for nap

1:30pm - Get up, potty, and nurse. Then more learning playtime (reading books, singing songs). Now that the weather's cooling off, I think we'll start doing an afternoon walk during this time.

3:30pm - potty and down for nap. This is beginning to be her shortest nap of the day. We used to put her down at 3pm for this nap, but she started waking at 4pm, so we shifted it later. I think she's beginning to wean herself from this third nap.

4:30pm or 5pm - Get up, potty, nurse.

5:30pm - One tablespoon rice cereal mixed with one ounce breast milk. Followed by bath/cleanup and change into jammies.

7:00pm - Potty, bedtime story, nurse, then right to bed at around 7:20. She usually falls asleep at this nursing. It's a lot of cluster-feeding at the end of the day, but I really want her to get 5 nursing sessions a day, especially as this flu season approaches.

Today I added a second rice cereal feeding in at 10:45am. She took it all, surprisingly. She still sucks on her hands, so she'll alternate bites of cereal with a left fist chaser. This week I'll probably start infant oatmeal. She's such a cute eater!

She's been a bit of a pill today. She had a rough morning after her 4:30 wakeup, she heard the early morning flights take off from the nearby airport, then the 6am recycling truck. She's also really snotty today. Not sure if she's getting sick or teething, since there's also a lot of slobber, too. Haven't felt any new bumps on her gums, maybe they're still working their way up to the surface.

Thanks for reading this boring post. It's more for my memory than anything. I have to journal somewhere if I can't scrapbook!